Senator schumer ok. Good morning. Im really proud to be joined my my colleagues today. We have senator leahy, senator franken, snorn warren, senator cortez masto and senator reed and we are expecting no one else. How do you like that . Ok. And the people behind me are among the leading defenders in the senate of reforms we put in place after the financial crisis. Many of them are architects of the strong Consumer Protections we have today. But now these reforms are under attack. As reports indicate, republicans are looking for votes to repeal the cfpbs forced arbitration rule. Passing this is the equivalent republicans handing out a getoutofjail free card to wells fargo and to equifax, plain and simple. These companies did terrible, terrible wrong and they want to prevent consumers from having rights to sue them . At is out rate ouge outrageous. Worse, its a green light to wall street to be free to were e to put simply, urging our republican colleagues to say no to immunity to equifax, wells fargo or anyone else who does such horrible financial misdeeds. Now, there are two ways in which repealing the cfpbs rule would provide legal immunity for Financial Institutions like equifax and wells fargo. First, without the cfpbs rule, companies will be allowed to keep issues under issues under dispute private. Like the opening of more than 3. 5 million fraudulent private accounts at wells fargo, for example. Minimizing potential penalties from regulators. Second, the average person knows that sometimes the courts are their only recourse against big powerful forces in america. Their only recourse when they are being taken advantage of by more powerful entities like big banks. In the courtroom, individuals are on equal footing with large corporate defenders. But arbitration has been shown to favor big corporations who get to choose the arbiter over and over and over again. Forced arbitration clauses, requiring individuals to settle disputes against Financial Institutions on an individual basis and in private usually in a very corporatefriendly setting, putting consumers at a disadvantage and preventing them from joining together and bringing a Class Action Lawsuit against the company. That makes it nearly financially impossible for average americans to go up against big banks on their own. It shields the public from learning about the egregious practices of these companies. And then on the flip side, if individuals were allowed to join together and bring a class action collectively, they could mount a strong Legal Defense and hold them accountable. So we believe in allowing people to sue or against these forced arbitration clauses and we will have as part of our better deal a broad antiarbitration clause provision that youll see a while later. On the flip side, so ill close by saying this. We were all elected to protect the interests of average americans, hold bad actors in both the federal government and private sector accountable. Why in the wake of some of the most malicious, nasty, disgusting actions weve seen since enron would the senate limit the power of the average person in favor of helping Corporate America and avoid punishment for very severe misdeeds . We cant let this happen. We are all dedicated to fight this from happening. Our republican colleagues shouldnt even think of ringing a provision that would defang any rights consumers have to the floor, because well do everything we can to fight it and to defeat it. And with that let me call on senator leahy. I have to go to the floor and make a statement, so i leave it up to my very, very capable colleague. And the incapables none of whom are here. Senator leahy i am not going to i wont even touch that one. Its just too easy. No naming names. Senator leahy i look at the enormous changes from when i was in the private practice of law and we had to protect consumers. You at least had a balance. Now you see consumers being ripped off by big banks, predatory lenders. That should not be a partisan issue. Just because consumers sign contracts for goods and Services Like applying for a credit card doesnt mean we should give up our rights. Were americans. Everybody talks about protecting your rights. These companies are taking away the rights. As senator schumer talked about, they pick who the arbitrator is going to be. Anybody and i talked with a number of people who are potential arbitrators they know if they ever rule against one of the big companies, these arbitrators, theyll never get picked again. And these are inherently unequal relationships. Everybody corporations have all the power but they also have the incentive to hide these clauses in the fine print. They want to avoid accountability if the consumer gets a bad product or is cheated or even injured. Look at wells fargo. Look at equifax. I can think of the all the letters and calls i get from the small state of vermont of people concerned about being ripped off there. I cant imagine what is like in the larger states. The average person, the average person, the consumer gets hurt. The c. E. O. Still gets millions of dollars in salaries every year. Theyre not hurt. And they have every incentive to stop the consumer from recovering. So i think we should both parties should stand together. Republicans and democrats should, if they really care for the people they represent, theyll come together, theyll stop the use of forced arbitration across the board to ensure americans arent denied their fundamental rights. Wells fargo would have gone on as long as they did, they have the right to go after them so, i want to call on my colleague from new england, list reed, and the senator schumer left is senator reed, senator franken, senator warren and senator cortez masto. Senator reed im delighted to stand up with my colleagues and of oint out that the repeal the Consumer Financial protection rule about forced arbitration would be a terrible mistake. Particularly in the wake of wells fargo and equifax. Millions of americans have been abused by these companies and their rights are will not be realized in forced arbitration. The cfpb rule would give them a fair chance to make sure that their rights are protected. We have to think about the millions of americans who will be adversely affected if this rule was taken away. Some of them dont even know in the equifax situation whether or not they have been affected because their information is gone. Perhaps theyre still searching for answers. This forced arbitration makes it easier for bad actors in the Corporate Community to continue to be bad actors. And its particularly important for the men and women of our armed forces because they are very vulnerable to these financial shenanigans. In fact, there are some bad actors who target soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, all of our serviceperson ell and their families. In fact, Service Personnel and their families. In fact, the department of defense knows this. In the military lending act, which covers a small portion of transactions our military engage in, they have prohibited forced arbitration, but the broader protection is provided by the Service Members civil relief act. That does not explicitly outlaw forced arbitration. So all our Service Members would benefit from this rule. If you really want to support the troops and their families as they protect us, you do not want to vote this rule down. Let me tell you, this is not just my view. The military coalition has strongly come out against this repeal of the cfpb rule. Thats 32 military organizations including the veterans of foreign wars and associations representing the navy, the army, the air force, and the marine corps. Interestingly in august the National Convention of the American Legion adopted a formal resolution opposing legislation to repeal cfpb forced arbitration rule because in their words, it is extremely unfair to bar certificate have i members, veterans, and other consumers from joining together to enforce statutory and constitutional protections in court. So if we want to help and support our men and women in uniform, vote this rule this proposal, vote it down. Thank you. Senator franken thank you senator leahy. I want to thank all my colleagues for being here together. I hope everybody here understands the issue on forced arbitration. Forced arbitration basically serves one purpose, and that is to make sure the giant corporations can still come out on top if they wrong consumers. I have been Holding Hearings on this for years. This is one of the first issues when up on the floor military contractors were requiring employees who had been who had been sexually assaulted in iraq or afghanistan , force them into forced arbitration, and this was the result of the result was kept secret. Thats part of what forced arbitration does. You go into arbitration with a company and the result is a secret. Our ack reed was talking military. I had a hearing about a soldier from minnesota who had his bank foreclosed on his foreclose on his home while he was in iraq. It a camp riffinging his life. It was illegal to do, but the home and losed on his auctioned it off. It was bought for a third of the value of the house. Guess who bought it . The bank. Hat foreclosed on him. But hes prevented from going to arbitration by the law. Now, the cfpb, Consumer FinancialProtection Bureau, next speaker will had a hand in creating, started to do a study on this the compl uneven playing had a hand in creating, started to do a study on this about five years ago. And the results of the study just showed field that we have between big corporations and individuals and Small Businesses, by the way. And so they made some rules. The study confirmed what we really knew, which is that these clauses force people in minnesota and across the country to sign away their rights to go to court as a condition of buying a product or a service. They allow the corporations, the company to they allow Corporate America to take advantage of a shadow justice system. This happens this is in secret. Here is no process here. We had, in a hearing, a woman suing a hospital. Doctor there. They had not promoted any women doctors. En she went to arbitration hearing, meeting with the arbiter, he was in a law firm in a room that had it shelves with the name of the company she was going against, binders. Not binders for women. His is binders for arbitration agreements. That had been decided for the corporation. She said i knew i was going to lose. Of course she did. Thesefargo, they made all sham accounts, in 2013, three years before this is discovered, what person who discovered wells fargo was doing, had to go to arbitration. What did that mean . That meant that wells fargo got to keep doing this. Think about that. Secret. Its in secret. It doesnt become public. If you go to court, we wouldnt have had three more years of this. It would not have had consumers who ended up losing their credit rating, losing their homes because of this practice of wells fargo. Wells fargo being able to keep it secret. This is what this game is about. Now, fortunately the cfpb recently noled up their followed up their study on forced arbitration with a rule to ban Financial Institution from preventing groups of customers seeking justice in a public court of law. And the good news for consumers who have been wronged, that is good news for them. And this is people from payday lenders, debt relief companies, to big banks like wells fargo. And now we have data brokers like exwhich faction equifax that put 143 million americans private information at risk and they are trying to kill the rule. They sent out a product to people, millions of people, and the product was supposed was to help find out whether your data had been taken. Product to see whether you have had your identity stolen the conditions on the thing they sent you was that you couldnt that you had to go to mandatory arbitration. And it reverted back to the first product. In other words, this was like here, look up to see if your information was stolen and froket yourself, oh, and by the way, if you are one of these 143 million people, you cant sue us. This is sleazy. So we must, my republican colleagues have to, and i have talked to some of them, and i know well get some republican votes on this. But we must allow cfpb to move forward in implementing this critical consumer protection. Hope you will join us. In showing strong support for the cfpbs rule and opposing the special interests attempting to take it away. Ow elizabeth warren. It senator warren thank you very much. Im delighted to be here today with my colleagues. After the big banks crashed, the economy in 2008, we fought and got in place a Consumer FinancialProtection Bureau to be a strong watchdog for consumers. Heres the deal, its working. This agency has now forced giant banks to return more than 12 billion directly to consumers they cheated. Its handled more than a million complaints. And its come out with new rules and regulations that help level the playing field. New rules on mortgages, new rules that have made credit cards fairer, and now a new rule to say no more mandatory arbitration. The arbitration rule, i just want to explain it for just a second. A slightly different way. I want everyone in here to think about the fact. Suppose you open your credit card statement one day and you see that theres just a 30 charge in there. Its just 30 bucks that they want to take from you. And you call them and say, hey, i shouldnt have this 30 charge. There is no reason. I didnt agree to this. Why are you charging me 30 . And their response boils down to go pound sand. Were going to charge you 30 bucks and you are going to pay 30 bucks or well report you to equifax. Heres a deal in a where there is no mandatory arbitration. What can you do . The answer is on a 30 buck claim you can join a class action. Because the chances are really good if he cheated you out of 30 bucks adding an additional charge, they did it to somebody else, and somebody else, and somebody else. And in a World Without forced arbitration, that means there is a lawyer out there to say let me find the people who have done it. Sometimes to call. Sometimes youll talk to other people. You join those together and then what happens . Lawsuit. The Credit Card Company gets called out. They got a judgment. You get some compensation. And most of all lawsuit. The Credit Card Company gets th company gets held accountable. But flip it over. It if somewhere buried down in the fine print is a mandatory arbitration clause, you have been cheated out of 30 bucks, the first thing youll discover, ok, ill go to arbitration. Costs you 200 bucks. Is there anybody who is going to pay 200 bucks to go try to recover 30 . I dont think sow. So. Thats what happens. The Credit Card Company knows they can cheat everybody, millions of customers out of 30 bucks, 30 bucks, 30 bucks, 30 bucks. And theres just no risk that anyone is going to come back against them. And if you think theres no company, no bank, no credit issuer who would build a Business Model like that, i have two words for you wells fargo. Right . Build a Business Model on how i can cheat people out of modest amounts, right . Move back and forth, move it around. But just enough that it never hits the bigtime. And why does it never hit the bigtime . Because that forced arbitration clause means it will never be public. The way i see it, forced arbitration clauses are a nasty surprise buried in the fine print that let Credit Card Companies or banks cheat people and get away with it. And that is wrong. So who is oppose rolling back this rule . Military and veterans groups are opposed to it as senator reed opponented out. The aarp is opposed to rolling back this rule. Consumer groups are opposed to t Small Business groups are opposed to it. Even a lot of conservative groups are opposed to it because they believe that every american should have a right to go to court and you should not waive that right somewhere hidden down in the fine print. For me, this is a moment when people in the United States senate can make clear what side they stand on. With the consumer advocates antimilitary and veterans groups and the faith groups and civil Rights Groups who support the cfpb rule . Or will they side with the big banks, with the credit card with the payday lenders who oppose this rule . Were here today because we stand with hardworking people across this country. Its just that simple. Thank you. Masto my ez colleagues are right. Prior to becoming senator of the great state of nevada, i was the attorney general of nevada for eight with the years. I spent my career fighting those individuals for consumers who were being defrauded. Let me say this. This is prior this is prior to the cfpb even being created. On the frontlines protecting consumers other than our attorneys general were those consumer attorneys out there in private sector that were doing everything they could. Pr doing everything they could. Ill tell you what, there was enough fraud to go around by these corporations. We needed all the help we could get. In the year following the financial crash that i had fought so hard to take on wall street and the big banks recovering money for our homeowners and taxpayers, the cfpb was not there. They did not exist at that time. But i am happy to say with the support of the senators here and senator warren, during my tenure as attorney general, the cfpb was created and it was a big asset. Not only to the consumers but being homeowners and people country, but it was an additional tool to support what attorneys general had been doing all along. Im happy to say now we get to celebrate six years of this Critical Agency returning money to students and Service Members and seniors